


Sacrifice

by AugustStories



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), don't read this if you haven't seen the movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 14:24:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18693328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AugustStories/pseuds/AugustStories
Summary: Steve Rogers and Laura Barton think about Clint, heroes and sacrifice.--Don't read this if you haven't seen Endgame.





	1. Steve - A Hero's Sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

> I chose to put Major Character Death in this because of the deaths in the movie, no one dies in these two Oneshots. 
> 
> But it still heavily deals with the aftermath of first Nat's death in Steve's Oneshot and then with Tony's death and Steve's disappearance in Laura's Oneshot.

Steve saw how Clint dropped down on his knees and for a very long moment – or at least it felt like one – he couldn't move. His mind was unable to grasp the concept. Nastaha. Dead. Natasha dead. He would never get to see his friend again, would never get to see her smile or laugh or roll her eyes again. Her voice would never snark at him again... and how could it still hit him so hard to lose someone after everything he'd been through.

But here he was.

Freshly back from a dive down memory lane where he fought himself, fucked with a now parallel timeline by telling himself about Bucky and throwing up a little in his mouth when whispering 'Hail Hydra' at Sitwell while Rumlow and Rollins watched. Only to go even further back into the past where he saw Peggy again and began to torture himself all over again with a what ifs, where he saw Tony hug Howard before he was even born.

He got to see Tony make peace with his father and now they were back and Natasha was dead.

Why was life just always so unfair?

Steve glanced to the side just as Tony glanced over to him and then they were both moving finally. Rushing over and dropping down on one knee on either side of Clint. He was soaking wet, water mixing with silent rivers of tears on his face, in hi right hand he was clutching the Soul stone. Tony made a quick gesture over their heads and Rhodey and Thor understood, shushing everyone away, only Bruce remained.

"It should have been me," Clint said again when they were alone, his voice hollow and his eyes empty and unseeing. Steve wanted to say something but his tongue was like lead, unable to work. He wanted to tell Clint that it should have been neither of them, they just shouldn't have lost either of them while getting these blasted stones.

"Bruce, take the stones somewhere safe." Tony said softly after pulling the stone from Clint's weakening grasp. Their archer was shaking terribly now and they needed to get him warm before he fully fell into shock. Bruce took the stones and the Pym particles and then left, his heavy steps vanishing with the distant slam of a door.

"What happened, Clint?" Tony wanted to know, gently, his tone and the warmth in his voice letting Steve remember nights after New York.  
"A sacrifice," Clint croaked out, still starring at his dirty hands, "One of us had to sacrifice themselves to have the other get the stone. We fought each other... we had to... I jumped but she did, too..." Clint stopped after every third word or so, shaking his head like he needed to shake the words loose, "and then she let go." He shuddered then and his hand flexed like he was losing her all over again. Steven closed his eyes, too understanding, squeezed the hand resting on Clint's shoulder, he still didn't know what to say. "She just let go."

"She always did want to go out at her own choice." Tony spoke up again and Steve opened his eyes to look at him, Clint turned to look as well. "She wanted it to be her choice, her move, her call. She wanted it to mean something. And this... She went out a hero, not a villain, not an accident, not a nobody, not a once-Shield-agent, not a once-Red-Room-operative. A fucking hero." Tony swallowed, visibly fighting with his emotions, too. "We'll remember her as the hero she's always been. And Clint... you know why she made this choice."

"No, I don't."

"Think about it, Clint," Tony continued and that tone in him was new, that calm and settled part in him that had come with being a Dad. "Nat believed in us, she knew it was going to work and it will work. For her." Tony insisted and a small signal from him had Steve moving to get Clint up on his feet again. "Her sacrifice won't be for nothing. And you'll get your family back. Your kids need their father, Clint. Nat wanted them to have their father." Clint briefly closed his eyes, fresh new tears falling from reddened eyes.

"Come on," Steve found his voice again at long last as Clint just stared so helplessly and lost at Tony. "You should get into something dry. Maybe even lie down while the geniuses create us another gauntlet." Tony nodded to his words and Clint went pliant when Steve coaxed him into walking.

Steve knew the nightmares will come, he knew that Clint will dream of seeing his best friend fall for a very long time. Clint will wake up screaming and begging, he'll wake up with outstretched arms and flexing hands.

Steve also knew that Clint won't ever be alone in it, he'll have a team around him for support and understanding. Clint will have his family back to be there for him in his grief in ways none of them ever could because their plan will work.

Tony was right, their plan will work.

Natasha's sacrifice won't be for nothing.


	2. Laura - A Hero's Choice

"Why do people who come close to me think about sacrificing themselves for the greater good?"

Laura was stunned for a good long moment when Clint asked her that question out of the blue one warm early fall afternoon out on the deck, Cooper and Lila were in town to meet up with their friends but she expected them back for dinner and with Bucky playing with Nate over at the barn they had been in comfortable silence.

They work like that, don't need to talk constantly to know that the other one was there, even after what happened, even after everything that happened with losing each other and losing so many friends. Months now had passed since Bruce had snapped the departed back into existence, Laura sometimes still had nightmares over seeing her boys disappear right in front of her eyes before everything went dark for her as well.

Her nightmares were nothing compared to her husband's though and she never could be able to even come close to understanding how he must have felt to suddenly be alone. 

Months since Natasha had died for the soul stone, since Tony had died to save them all and defeat Thanos for good, since Steve had chosen to remain in the past in a different timeline than theirs to be truly happy.

Very slowly people were starting to find routines again, to find their footing in a new world because everything had changed. Half the population had lost five years, the other half had lived five years without them. And the Avengers and all their allied superheroes, they needed time to process, to understand what had happened, especially those who had survived the first snap.

Nothing would ever be the same but it didn't mean they wouldn't have a chance at happiness.

Tony Stark was gone but it didn't mean his daughter would grow up never knowing her father, too many people were around who had known the true Tony in the end and Laura made sure to call Pepper regularly, to just talk and show her that she wasn't alone. With the years lost, Morgan was only a few months younger than Nate and it felt so good to have seen them become friends the first time they had gotten together after Tony's wake.

Bucky and Wanda were two other regulars on the farm, though with Wanda it wasn't anything new, she'd been part of the family long before Thanos. With Bucky Laura knew that he was still a little struggling in finding a place for himself in the world, he was switching between avenging at Sam's side and taking time outs with them on the farm.

It did him good. It did Clint good.

And their bonding did them both good.

"I don't think people are immediately drawn to think about sacrificing themselves simply by being in your presence," Laura gave her response without stopping her laundry folding. "You need to look at it the other way around, darling. You inspire people to bring out the best in them. You believe in people if they're worth it, you encourage them to believe in themselves no matter how much doubt there may have been. I've seen that countless of times."

"Everyone of them we lost." Clint's morose tone had her look over after all to where he was sitting on the porch swing with Lila's newest bow, the last one she had outgrown again. His fingers were adjusting the settings to the ones their daughter preferred but his eyes were a million miles away and certainly not seeing Bucky swinging a shrieking Nate around even though Clint was looking at them. Laura let sock chaos be sock chaos and walked over to him, cupping his face with both hands, Clint blinked and focused on her.

"Not at all of them." She reminded him gently because it just was the truth, he had saved so many people, had led so many people away from a path that could have only ended in suffering and darkness and despair for them.  
"Phil, Tony, Pietro..." His voice broke as always with the kid, "Nat...even Steve in a way." He listed the losses they had made since aliens had descended upon New York but Laura had since made peace with all of those deaths.

Of course it hurt, of course it did, and she had been inconsolable for what felt like an eternity after hearing about each of them, even with Pietro, even with a kid she had never known personally.

But in the end all of those people had not died for nothing or disappeared for nothing, all of them had made choices. All of them had gone from their world as heroes.

And she was a mother, she had three children to raise in a whole new world that was still half hanging in chaos and uncertainty, still figuring out how to deal with suddenly being twice as populated again. She had two teenagers now who had lost friends because those were five years older now, she couldn't lose herself in grief, she needed to live.

And Laura knew that Nat, Tony and Steve would have wanted that for them, especially Nat and Tony, they had sacrificed themselves so they could live and be happy.

"Wanda is still here, Clint." She told her husband and then nodded her head to the side, "And I don't think you're gonna get rid of Bucky anytime soon." She hadn't pointed it out to either of them but it was frankly blaringly obvious that they were latching onto another because they had both lost their best friend, and they were similar enough to bond anyway.  
"Do you think it's a good thing?" Clint wondered and she let him move his head so he could watch Bucky with Nate as well, "I can't have another person dying in front of me because the greater good demands a sacrifice."

"I believe," Laura started and nudged his attention back on herself, "that everyone is entitled to their own choices, especially people like Bucky who like yourself had once had that free will taken away from them." She patted his cheeks when she saw that he had understood and then went back to her laundry. "I also think the time of cosmic apocalypses are behind us now. And if the worst things the Avengers are facing now are drug cartels and hidden Hydra cells that won't die out then I have full belief in their abilities to fight that down without any sacrifices to be made... why does this family only believe in dark socks?"

She only got silence to her rhetorical question, she knew Clint would still need time until he was truly going to appreciate and enjoy this fifth... sixth time he had gotten at life? But they were going to be okay, and there was happiness in their future, happiness and peace and family and friendship.

Just like Nat, Tony and Steve would have wanted for them.


End file.
